Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

  “Of course they are,” says America; “but what then?”

  “We have heard,” says Europe, “that millions of men are forbidden to read and write in your country.”

  “We know that,” says America; “but what is this outcry about?”

  “We have heard,” says Europe, “that Christian girls are sold to shame in your markets!”

  “That isn’t quite as it should be,” says America; “but still what is this excitement about?”

  “We hear that three millions of your people can have no legal marriage-ties,” says Europe.

  “Certainly, that is true,” returns America; “but you made such an outcry, we thought you saw some great cruelty going on.”

  “And you profess to be a free country!” says indignant Europe.

  “Certainly, we are the freest and most enlightened country in the world! What are you talking about?” says America.

  “You send your missionaries to Christianise us,” says Turkey; “and our religion has abolished this horrible system.”

  “You! you are all heathen over there — what business have you to talk?” answers America.

  Many people seem really to have thought that nothing but horrible exaggerations of the system of slavery could have produced the sensation which has recently been felt in all modern Europe. They do not know that the thing they have become accustomed to, and handled so freely in every discussion, seems to all other nations the sum and essence of villany. Modern Europe, opening her eyes and looking on the legal theory of the slave system, on the laws and interpretations of law which define it, says to America, in the language of the indignant Othello, If thou wilt justify a thing like this —

  Never pray more; abandon all remorse;

  On Horror’s head horrors accumulate;

  Do deeds to make Heaven weep, all earth amazed;

  For nothing canst thou to damnation add

  Greater than this.

  There is an awful state of familiarity with evil which the apostle calls being “dead in trespasses and sins,” where truth has been resisted, and evil perseveringly defended, and the convictions of conscience stifled, and the voice of God’s Holy Spirit bidden to depart. There is an awful paralysis of the moral sense, when deeds unholiest and crimes most fearful cease any longer to affect the nerve. That paralysis, always a fearful indication of the death and dissolution of nations, is a doubly-dangerous disease in a republic whose only power is in intelligence, justice, and virtue.

  CHAPTER II.

  PUBLIC OPINION FORMED BY EDUCATION.

  REV. CHARLES C. JONES, in his interesting work on the “Religious Instruction of Negroes,” has a passage which so peculiarly describes that influence of public opinion which we have been endeavouring to illustrate, that we shall copy it: —

  Habits of feeling and prejudices in relation to any subject are wont to take their rise out of our education or circumstances. Every man knows their influence to be great in shaping opinions and conduct, and oft-times how unwittingly they are formed; that while we may be unconscious of their existence, they may grow with our growth and strengthen with our strength. Familiarity converts deformity into comeliness. Hence we are not always the best judges of our condition. Another may remark inconveniences, and, indeed, real evils, in it, of which we may be said to have been all our lives scarcely conscious. So, also, evils which, upon first acquaintance, revolted our whole nature, and appeared intolerable, custom almost makes us forget even to see. Men passing out of one state of society into another encounter a thousand things to which they feel that they can never be reconciled; yet, shortly after, their sensibilities become dulled, a change passes over them, they scarcely know how. They have accommodated themselves to their new circumstances and relations — they are Romans in Rome.

  Let us now inquire what are the educational influences which bear upon the mind educated in constant familiarity with the slave system.

  Take any child of ingenuous mind and of generous heart, and educate him under the influences of slavery, and what are the things which go to form his character? An anecdote which a lady related to the writer may be in point in this place. In giving an account of some of the things which induced her to remove her family from under the influence of slavery, she related the following incident: — Looking out of her nursery window one day, she saw her daughter, about three years of age, seated in her little carriage, with six or eight young negro children harnessed into it for horses. Two or three of the older slaves were standing around their little mistress, and one of them, putting a whip into her hand, said, “There Misse, whip ’em well; make ’em go! They’re all your niggers.”

  What a moral and religious lesson was this for that young soul! The mother was a judicious woman, who never would herself have taught such a thing; but the whole influence of slave society had burnt it into the soul of every negro, and through them it was communicated to the child.

  As soon as a child is old enough to read the newspapers, he sees in every column such notices as the following from a late Richmond Whig, — and other papers:

  LARGE SALE OF NEGROES, HORSES, MULES, CATTLE,&c.

  The subscriber, under a decree of the Circuit Superior Court for Fluvanna County, will proceed to sell, by public auction, at the late residence of William Galt, deceased, on TUESDAY, the 30th day of November, and WEDNESDAY, the 1st day of December next, beginning at eleven o’clock, the negroes, stock,&c., of all kinds, belonging to the estate, consisting of 175 negroes, amongst whom are SOME CARPENTERS AND BLACKSMITHS — 10 horses, 33 mules, 100 head of cattle, 100 sheep, 200 hogs, 1500 barrels corn, oats, fodder,&c., the plantation and shop tools of all kinds.

  The Negroes will be sold for cash; the other property on a credit of nine months, the purchaser giving bond, with approved security.

  JAMES GALT, Administrator of William Galt, deceased.

  Oct. 19.

  From the “Nashville Gazette,” November 23, 1852: —

  GREAT SALE OF NEGROES, MULES, CATTLE,&c.

  On TUESDAY, the 21st day of December next, at the Plantation of the late N. A. MC NAIRY, on the Franklin Turnpike, on account of Mrs. C. B. McNairy, Executrix, we will offer at Public Sale

  FIFTY VALUABLE NEGROES.

  These Negroes are good Plantation Negroes, and will be sold in families. Those wishing to purchase will do well to see them before the day of sale.

  Also TEN FINE WORK MULES, TWO JACKS AND ONE JENNET, MILCH COWS, AND CALVES, Cattle, Stock Hogs, 1200 barrels Corn, Oats, Hay, Fodder, &c. Two Wagons, one Cart, Farming Utensils,&c.

  From the Newberry Sentinel: —

  FOR SALE.

  The subscriber will sell at Auction, on the 15th of this month, at the Plantation on which he resides, distant eleven miles from the Town of Newberry, and near the Laurens Railroad,

  TWENTY-TWO YOUNG AND LIKELY NEGROES;

  comprising able-bodied field hands, good cooks, house servants, and an excellent blacksmith. About 1500 bushels of corn, a quantity of fodder, hogs, mules, sheep, neat cattle, household and kitchen furniture, and other property. Terms made public on day of sale.

  Dec. 1. M. C. GARY.

  *”Laurensville Herald” copy till day of sale.

  From the South Carolinian, October 21, 1852: —

  ESTATE SALE OF VALUABLE PROPERTY.

  The undersigned, as Administrator of the Estate of Col. T. Randell, deceased, will sell, on MONDAY, the 20th December next, all the personal property belonging to said estate, consisting of 56 NEGROES, STOCK, CORN, FODDER,&c.&c. The sale will take place at the residence of the deceased, on Sandy River, 10 miles west of Chesterville.

  Terms of sale: The negroes on a credit of 12 months, with interest from day of sale, and two good sureties. The other property will be sold for cash.

  Sept. 2. SAMUEL J. RANDELL.

  See also New Orleans Bee, October 28. After advertising the landed estate of Madeline Lanoux, deceased, comes the following enumeration of chattels: —

  Twelve sl
aves, men and women; a small, quite new schooner; a ferrying flat boat; some cows, calves, heifers, and sheep; a lot of household furniture; the contents of a store, consisting of hard-ware, crockery-ware, groceries, dry goods,&c.

  Now, suppose all parents to be as pious and benevolent as Mr. Jones — a thing not at all to be hoped for, as things are — and suppose them to try their very best to impress on the child a conviction that all souls are of equal value in the sight of God; that the negro soul is as truly beloved of Christ, and ransomed with his blood, as the master’s; and is there any such thing as making him believe or realise it? Will he believe that that which he sees every week advertised with hogs, and horses, and fodder, and cotton-seed, and refuse furniture — bedsteads, tables, and chairs — is indeed so divine a thing? We will suppose that the little child knows some pious slave; that he sees him at the communion-table, partaking, in a far-off, solitary manner, of the sacramental bread and wine. He sees his pious father and mother recognise the slave as a Christian brother; they tell him that he is an “heir of God, a joint heir with Jesus Christ;” and the next week he sees him advertised in the paper, in company with a lot of hogs, stock, and fodder. Can the child possibly believe in what his Christian parents have told him when he sees this? We have spoken now of only the common advertisements of the paper; but suppose the child to live in some districts of the country, and advertisements of a still more degrading character meet his eye. In the State of Alabama, a newspaper devoted to politics, literature, and EDUCATION, has a standing weekly advertisement, of which this is a copy: —

  NOTICE.

  The undersigned having an excellent pack of HOUNDS, for trailing and catching runaway slaves, informs the public that his prices in future will be as follows for such services: —

  Dollars.

  For each day employed in hunting or trailing

  2 50c.

  For catching each slaveFor going over ten miles and catching slaves If sent for, the above prices will be exacted in cash. The subscriber resides one mile and a half south of Dadeville, Ala.

  B. BLACK.

  Dadaville, Sept. 1, 1852. 1-tf.

  The reader will see by the printer’s sign at the bottom that it is a season advertisement, and, therefore, would meet the eye of the child week after week. The paper from which we have cut this contains among its extracts passages from Dickens’s “Household Words,” from Professor Felton’s article in the “Christian Examiner” on the relation of the sexes, and a most beautiful and chivalrous appeal from the eloquent senator Soule on the legal rights of women. Let us now ask, since this paper is devoted to education, what sort of an educational influence such advertisements have? And, of course, such an establishment is not kept up without patronage. Where there are negro-hunters advertising in a paper, there are also negro-hunts, and there are dogs being trained to hunt; and all this process goes on before the eyes of children; and what sort of an education is it?

  The writer has received an account of the way in which dogs are trained for this business. The information has been communicated to the gentleman who writes it by a negro man, who, having been always accustomed to see it done, described it with as little sense of there being anything out of the way in it as if the dogs had been trained to catch raccoons. It came to the writer in a recent letter from the South: —

  The way to train ’em (says the man) is to take these yer pups — any kind o’ pups will do — fox-hounds, bull-dogs, most any; but take the pups, and keep ’em shut up, and don’t let ’em never see a nigger till they get big enough to be larned. When the pups gits old enough to be set on to things, then make ’em run after a nigger; and when they cotches him, give ’em meat. Tell the nigger to run as hard as he can, and git up in a tree, so as to larn the dogs to tree ‘em; then take the shoe of a nigger, and larn ’em to find the nigger it belongs to; then a rag of his clothes; and so on. Allers be carful to tree the nigger, and teach the dog to wait and bark under the tree till you come up and give him his meat.

  See also the following advertisement from the Ouachita Register, a newspaper dated “Monroe, La., Tuesday evening, June 1, 1852.”

  NEGRO DOGS.

  The undersigned would respectfully inform the citizens of Ouachita and adjacent parishes, that he has located about 2½ miles east of John White’s, on the road leading from Monroe to Bastrop, and that he has a fine pack of Dogs for catching negroes. Persons wishing negroes caught will do well to gave him a call. He can always be found at his stand when not engaged in hunting, and even then information of his whereabouts can always be had of some one on the premises.

  Terms. — Five dollars per day and found, when there is no track pointed out. When the track is shown, twenty-five dollars will be charged for catching the negro.

  M. C. GOFF. Monroe, Feb. 17, 1852. 15-3m.

  Now, do not all the scenes likely to be enacted under this head form a fine education for the children of a Christian nation? and can we wonder if children so formed see no cruelty in slavery? Can children realise that creatures who are thus hunted are the children of one heavenly Father with themselves?

  But suppose the boy grows up to be a man, and attends the courts of justice, and hears intelligent, learned men declaring from the bench that “the mere beating of a slave, unaccompanied by any circumstances of cruelty, or an attempt to kill, is no breach of the peace of the State.” Suppose he hears it decided in the same place that no insult or outrage upon any slave is considered worthy of legal redress, unless it impairs his property value. Suppose he hears, as he would in Virginia, that it is the policy of the law to protect the master even in inflicting cruel, malicious, and excessive punishment upon the slave. Suppose a slave is murdered and he hears the lawyers arguing that it cannot be considered a murder, because the slave, in law, is not considered a human being; and then suppose the case is appealed to a superior court, and he hears the judge expending his forces on a long and eloquent dissertation to prove that the slave is a human being; at least, that he is as much so as a lunatic, an idiot, or an unborn child, and that, therefore, he can be murdered. (See Judge Clarke’s speech, on .) Suppose he sees that all the administration of law with regard to the slave proceeds on the idea that he is absolutely nothing more than a bale of merchandise. Suppose he hears such language as this, which occurs in the reasonings of the Brazealle case, and which is a fair sample of the manner in which such subjects are ordinarily discussed. “The slave has no more political capacity, no more right to purchase, hold, or transfer property, than the mule in his plough; he is in himself but a mere chattel — the subject of absolute ownership.” Suppose he sees on the statute-book such sentences as these, from the civil code of Louisiana: —

  Art. 2500. The latent defects of slaves and animals are divided into two classes — vices of body, and vices of character.

  Art. 2501. The vices of body are distinguished into absolute and relative.

  Art. 2502. The absolute vices of slaves are leprosy, madness, and epilepsy.

  Art. 2503. The absolute vices of horses and mules, are short wind, glanders, and founder.

  The influence of this language is made all the stronger on the young mind from the fact that it is not the language of contempt, or of passion, but of calm, matter-of-fact, legal statement.

  What effect must be produced on the mind of the young man when he comes to see that, however atrocious and however well-proved be the murder of a slave, the murderer uniformly escapes; and that, though the cases where the slave has fallen a victim to passions of the white are so multiplied, yet the fact of an execution for such a crime is yet almost unknown in the country? Does not all this tend to produce exactly that estimate of the value of negro life and happiness which Frederic Douglass says was expressed by a common proverb among the white boys where he was brought up: “It’s worth sixpence to kill a nigger, and sixpence more to bury him?”

  We see the public sentiment which has been formed by this kind of education exhibited by the following paragraph from the
Cambridge Democrat, Md., Oct. 27, 1852. That paper quotes the following from the Woodville Republican, of Mississippi. It seems a Mr. Joshua Johns had killed a slave, and had been sentenced therefore to the penitentiary for two years. The Republican thus laments his hard lot: —

  STATE v. JOSHUA JOHNS.

  This cause resulted in the conviction of Johns, and his sentence to the Penitentiary for two years. Although every member of the jury, together with the bar, and the public generally, signed a petition to the governor for young Johns’ pardon, yet there was no fault to find with the verdict of the jury. The extreme youth of Johns, and the circumstances in which the killing occurred, enlisted universal sympathy in his favour. There is no doubt that the negro had provoked him to the deed by the use of insolent language; but how often must it be told that words are no justification for blows? There are many persons — and we regret to say it — who think they have the same right to shoot a negro, if he insults them, or even runs from them, that they have to shoot down a dog but there are laws for the protection of the slave as well as the master, and the sooner the error above alluded to is removed, the better will it be for both parties.

  The unfortunate youth who has now entailed upon himself the penalty of the law, we doubt not, had no idea that there existed such penalty; and even if he was aware of the fact, the repeated insults and taunts of the negro go far to mitigate the crime. Johns was defended by I. D. Gildart, Esq., who probably did all that could have been effected in his defence.

  The Democrat adds:

  We learn from Mr. Curry, deputy sheriff, of Wilkinson County, that Johns has been pardoned by the governor. We are gratified to hear it.

  This error above alluded to, of thinking it is as innocent to shoot down a negro as a dog, is one, we fairly admit, for which young Johns ought not to be very severely blamed. He has been educated in a system of things of which this opinion is the inevitable result; and he, individually, is far less guilty for it than are those men who support the system of laws, and keep up the educational influences, which lead young Southern men directly to this conclusion. Johns may be, for aught we know, as generous-hearted and as just naturally as any young man living; but the horrible system under which he has been educated has rendered him incapable of distinguishing what either generosity or justice is, as applied to the negro.